Restore Grant's memorial

Washington Post

Updated 4:47 pm, Monday, January 28, 2013

Recent months have certainly been a season of celebration for Abraham Lincoln — an Oscar-nominated film, the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, President Obama's second oath of office sworn on the 16th president's Bible. And deservedly so. We'd just like to interrupt it, briefly, for a few words about the man who made the Union's military triumph in the Civil War possible, a triumph that secured Lincoln's place in history.

Like Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant had an abiding faith in the Union and a hatred of slavery. Battlefield victories he engineered earned Lincoln's confidence and vaulted Grant to lead a military that might not have defeated the Confederacy under a different leader.

Most Popular

Elected president in 1868, Grant served two terms and pursued the most aggressive civil rights program of any president until Lyndon B. Johnson.

A grateful nation erected monuments: an immense mausoleum in New York and, in 1922, the Grant Memorial at the western base of Capitol Hill, facing the Lincoln Memorial at the other end of the National Mall. The remarkable bronze statuary by Henry Merwin Shrady includes a serene Gen. Grant mounted on his horse, Cincinnati, flanked by dramatic sculptures of Civil War soldiers in combat.

This magnificent landmark has fallen into disrepair. Last year, a government-commissioned assessment found missing marble balustrades, crumbling marble surfaces, cracks in pedestals and ugly bluish stains spread by water running off corroded bronze.

Restoring the memorial will cost millions of dollars — the first $7 million are being sought this year. That's not small change. But even in fiscally trying times, Congress can and should supply the necessary funds. Ulysses S. Grant was among the most impressive of Americans. He deserves a memorial to match.